[From  The  Popular  Science  Monthly,  June,  1882.] 

SPECULATIVE 

SCIENCE. 


BY 


JoVBf  STALLO. 

f* 


NEW  YORK : 

D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY, 

1,  3,  ahd  5  BOND  STREET 
1882. 


\ 

\ 


1 

1 


SPECULATIVE  SCIENCE. 


“  Wenn  ein  Kopf  und  ein  Buch  zusammenstossen ,  und  es  klingt  ho  hi,  muss  es  denn  immer 
das  Buch  gewesen  sein  ?  ” — Lichtenberg,  the  Physicist. 

rTIHE  above  title  is  prefixed  to  an  article  contributed  by  Professor 


A-  Simon  Newcomb  to  the  April  number  of  the  “  International  Re¬ 
view.”  The  avowed  object  of  that  article  is  to  discredit  a  recent  vol¬ 
ume  of  the  “  International  Scientific  Series”  (“  The  Concepts  and 
Theories  of  Modern  Physics  ”)  as  a  publication  unworthy  of  the  com¬ 
pany  in  which  it  appears,  and  to  denounce  its  author  as  a  person 
ignorant  of  the  subject  whereon  he  writes — as  a  scientific,  or  rather 
unscientific,  “charlatan”  and  “pretender”  belonging  to  the  class  of 
“paradoxers”  whom  Professor  De  Morgan  has  immortalized  in  his 
famous  “  Budget.”  I  am  fully  aware  that,  as  a  rule,  it  is  both  unwise 
and  in  questionable  taste  for  an  author  to  make  direct  reply  to  criti¬ 
cism,  however  hostile,  baseless,  or  absurd.  The  merits  of  a  book  must 
find  their  vindication,  at  last,  in  its  contents,  and  the  chief  function 
of  the  critic  is  to  bring  them  to  the  attention  of  the  reader,  the  value 
and  spirit  of  the  critical  performance  being  of  secondary  importance. 
But  the  case  in  hand  appears  to  me  to  be  an  exceptional  one.  The 
unmistakable  intent  of  Professor  Newcomb’s  “  criticism  ”  (and,  if  it 
be  left  unchallenged,  its  probable  effect)  is  to  signalize  the  contents  of 
the  book  with  which  he  deals  as  mere  drivel,  and  unworthy  of  a  mo¬ 
ment’s  serious  attention.  And  he  writes  for  a  magazine,  the  majority 
of  whose  readers,  however  intelligent  they  may  be,  can  hardly  be  ex¬ 
pected  to  possess  that  familiarity  with  the  matters  under  discussion 
which  is  a  necessary  prerequisite  to  the  formation  of  an  independent 
and  trustworthy  judgment.  All  they  are  likely  to  know  and  care  is, 


4 


that  Professor  Newcomb  is  a  prominent  scientist,  at  the  head  of  a 
scientific  bureau  in  Washington;  while  the  author  of  the  book  he  pro¬ 
fesses  to  review,  if  known  at  all,  is  known  only  in  connection  with 
pursuits  which  are  generally  supposed  to  preclude,  not  only  distinc¬ 
tion  but  even  reputable  standing  in  the  domains  of  scientific  investi¬ 
gation.  I  take  the  liberty,  therefore,  to  subject  the  strictures  of  my 
critic  to  a  counter-critical  examination,  trusting  that  the  learned  pro¬ 
fessor  himself  will  find  it  thorough,  and  that  the  reader  who  has  not 
only  perused  his  article,  but  also  looked  into  a  chapter  or  two  of  my 
book,  will  recognize  it  as  neither  impertinent  nor  unfair. 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  soundness  or  unsoundness  of  the 
general  argument  of  the  little  book  in  question,  the  drift  of  that  argu¬ 
ment,  it  seems  to  me,  can  hardly  be  mistaken  by  the  reasonably  intelli¬ 
gent  reader.  What  I  attempt  to  show  is  simply  this  :  that  modern 
physical  science  aims  at  a  mechanical  interpretation  of  physical  phe¬ 
nomena,  seeking  to  effect  a  reduction  of  them  to  two  elements  which 
are  ordinarily  designated  as  matter  and  motion ,  but  which  (for  reasons 
briefly  stated  in  the  book,  but  to  be  stated  more  at  length  presently) 
are  more  correctly  designated  as  mass  and  motion.  I  then  attempt  to 
show  that,  if  to  these  premises  we  add  the  assumption  of  the  atomic 
constitution  of  matter,  the  mechanical  theory  necessarily  involves  four 
distinct  propositions,  relating  severally  to  the  equality,  inertia,  and  in¬ 
elasticity  of  the  atoms  or  ultimate  molecules  and  the  essentially  ki¬ 
netic  character  of  what  is  now  universally  termed  energy.  In  order  to 
enforce  the  irrecusability  of  these  propositions  on  the  basis  of  the 
atomo-mechanical  theory,  and  to  guard  against  the  imputation  that  I 
am  engaged  in  the  frivolous  pastime  of  chopping  logic,  I  am  at  pains 
to  show,  in  the  next  four  chapters,  that  every  one  of  these  proposi¬ 
tions  is  insisted  on  and  propounded  in  terms  identical  with,  or  equiva¬ 
lent  to,  those  in  which  I  state  them,  by  men  whom  I  was  under  the 
delusion,  up  to  the  time  of  the  appearance  of  Professor  Newcomb’s 
article,  of  regarding  as  persons  of  the  highest  scientific  authority- 
such  men  as  Professors  Du  Bois-Reymond,  Thomas  Graham,  Wundt, 
etc.  I  then  proceed  to  inquire  what  is  the  relation  of  these  proposi¬ 
tions  to  the  sciences  of  chemistry,  physics,  and  astronomy,  as  they  are 
actually  constituted,  endeavoring  to  ascertain  whether  or  not  the  funda¬ 
mental  propositions  of  the  atomo-mechanical  theory  are  available  as 
theoretical  solvents  of  the  facts  with  which  these  sciences  are  con¬ 
versant,  and  whether  or  not  they  are  consistent  with  them.  The  result 
of  this  inquiry  is,  that  the  man  of  science,  however  emphatic  he  may 
be  in  the  general  assertion  that  all  physical  phenomena  are  due  to  tl  e 
interaction  of  atoms  or  ultimate  molecules,  is  constrained  by  the  da  a 
of  scientific  experience  to  repudiate  and  discard  the  proposition 
which  his  assertion  necessarily  involves.  It  thus  appears  that  there  s 
conflict  between  the  facts  and  working  hypotheses  or  theories  of  tl  e 
sciences  on  the  one  hand  and  the  atomo-mechanical  theory  on  tl  e 


5 


other  ;  that  the  latter  theory  fails  in  the  presence  of  the  facts,  and 
that  all  attempts  to  remove  this  conflict  have,  thus  far  at  least,  been 
abortive. 

After  supplementing  these  preliminaries  by  a  discussion  of  the 
atomic  theory  and  its  dependant,  the  kinetic  theory  of  gases,  I  ap¬ 
proach  the  problem  whose  solution  is  the  sole  aim  of  my  little  treatise, 
which,  as  is  expressly  stated  in  the  very  first  sentence  of  the  preface, 
is  designed  as  a  contribution,  not  to  physics  or  metaphysics,  but  to  the 
theory  of  cognition.  That  problem  is  the  determination  of  the  logical 
and  psychological  origin  of  the  mechanical  theory,  and  of  its  attitude 
toward  the  laws  of  thought  and  the  forms  and  conditions  of  its  evolu¬ 
tion.  It  is  neither  necessary  nor  practicable  here  to  attempt  a  repro¬ 
duction  of  the  tenor  of  my  discussion.  It  is  sufficient  for  my  present 
purpose  to  state  my  conclusion,  which  is,  that  the  mechanical  theory 
with  all  its  implications  is  founded  on  a  total  disregard  or  misapprehen¬ 
sion  of  the  true  relation  of  thoughts  to  things  or  of  concepts  to  phys¬ 
ical  realities  ;  that,  so  far  from  being  a  departure  from  and  standing  in 
antagonism  to  metaphysical  speculation,  the  propositions  which  lie  at 
its  base  are  simply  exemplifications  of  the  fallacies  that  vitiate  all 
metaphysical  or  ontological  reasoning  properly  so  called.  There  is 
hardly  a  page  in  the  book,  after  the  first  two  expository  chapters,  in 
which  my  utter  repudiation  of  the  mechanical  theory  and  its  funda¬ 
mental  assumptions  is  not  conspicuous.  My  objections  to  this  theory 
are  stated  in  so  many  ways,  and  are  enforced  by  so  many  considera¬ 
tions,  that  my  position  in  regard  to  it  appears  to  me  insusceptible  of 
misapprehension '  even  by  the  most  hebetated  intellect.  During  the 
last  six  weeks  I  have  received  more  than  twenty  letters  from  various 
persons — most  of  them  mathematicians  and  physicists,  but  a  few  of 
them  persons  without  scientific  training — in  which  the  doctrines  of  my 
book  are  discussed  or  questioned,  sometimes  on  grounds  which  indicate 
that  my  meaning  has  been  strangely  misapprehended.  But  not  one  of 
these  letters  gives  rise  to  the  least  suspicion  that  the  writer  was  mis¬ 
taken  as  to  my  attitude  toward  the  mechanical  theory. 

And  now,  what  does  Professor  Newcomb  represent  my  position  to 
be  ?  The  reader  who  has  not  seen  his  article  will  be  amazed  when  I 
tell  him  that,  according  to  him,  my  book  was  written  for  the  purpose 
of  maintaining  the  propositions  of  the  atomo-mechanical  theory,  and 
of  subverting  the  whole  science  of  physics  by  means  of  them,  on  the 
principle,  I  suppose,  that  if  the  facts  do  not  agree  with  the  theory,  so 
much  the  worse  for  the  facts  !  Here  is  Professor  Newcomb’s  lan¬ 
guage  : 

The  author’s  criticism  is  wholly  destructive;  where  he  constructs  it  is  only 
to  destroy.  It  is  true  that  Bis  first,  chapter  on  the  atomo-mechanical  theory  lays 
down  certain  propositions  already  mentioned  which  he  seems  to  hold  as  true. 
He  makes  use  of  them  to  destroy  the  whole  fabric  of  modern  physics,  and  sh<>w 
physical  investigators  generally  to  le  the  subjects  of  miserable  delusions.  But 


6 


his  la*t  chapter  is  devoted  to  showing  that  this  theory  is  itself  a  failure,  so  that, 
when  he  takes  his  leave,  we  have  nothing  left  to  contemplate  but  a  mass  of  ruins. 

It  is  curious  to  note  the  introduction  of  the  word  “  seems  ”  into  this 
passage — as  the  lawyers  say,  its  appearance  with  a  semble — while  in 
other  places,  e.  g.,  where  Professor  Newcomb  speaks  of  the  proposition 
that  molecules  are  inelastic  as  my  “favorite  doctrine,”  or  where  he 
charges  me  (after  reading  my  tenth  chapter  !)  with  ignorantly  con¬ 
founding  the  “abstract  noun”  mass  with  the  concrete  larva  matter,  he 
makes  no  such  qualification. 

Having  satisfied  himself  (no  doubt  before  writing  his  article, 
though  the  conclusion  is  stated  most  explicitly  toward  its  close)  that  I 
am  in  the  lists  as  a  champion  of  the  atomo-mechanical  theory  and  as 
the  dogmatic  defender  of  its  fundamental  propositions,  he  proceeds  to 
assail  these  propositions,  sometimes  with  what  he  seems  to  regard  as 
an  argument,  but  generally  with  a  sneer.  The  contents  of  my  intro¬ 
ductory  chapter,  consisting  almost  exclusively  of  citations  from  the 
writings  of  Professors  Kirchhoff,  Helmholtz,  Clerk  Maxwell,  Ludwig, 
Du  Bois-Reymond,  etc.,  he  brands  as  “propositions  in  which  we  can 
trace  neither  coherence  nor  sense.”  The  thesis  that,  on  the  basis  of  the 
atomo-mechanical  theory,  all  potential  energy  is  in  reality  kinetic — 
the  distinct  proposition  of  Professor  P.  G.  Tait,  who  asserts  it  as  the 
unavoidable  consequence  of  the  atomo-mechanical  theory  of  gravita¬ 
tion — he  “  passes  over  as  not  even  worth  quoting.”  Similarly  the  doc¬ 
trine  of  the  essential  passivity  of  matter — also  a  proposition  of  Pro¬ 
fessor  Tait,  whose  exact  words  I  quote  on  page  306  of  my  book — is 
flouted  with  the  disdainful  remark  that  “  such  words  as  ‘  active  ’  and 
‘ passive’  have  no  application  in  the  case  and  serve  no  purpose,  except 
to  produce  confusion  in  the  mind  of  the  reader.”  In  this  way  he 
levels  his  thrusts  at  the  most  eminent  physicists  and  mathematicians 
of  the  day,  laboring  always  under  the  hallucination  that  he  is  strik¬ 
ing  at  me. 

Among  the  most  characteristic  performances  of  Professor  New¬ 
comb  are  his  strictures,  already  adverted  to,  on  my  substitution  of  the 
term  mass  for  the  word  matter ,  in  designation  of  the  substratum  of 
motion  in  the  light  of  the  atomo-mechanical  theory.  According  to 
him,  this  use  of  the  word  mass  is  evidence  of  my  ignorance  and  intel¬ 
lectual  confusion,  as  well  as  of  my  “  total  misconception  of  the  ideas 
and  methods  of  modern  science.”  He  informs  me  that  the  word  mass 
is  “  an  abstract  noun  like  length ,”  whereas  I  use  it  “  as  a  concrete  term, 
and  in  nearly  the  same  sense  as  we  commonly  use  the  word  matter.” 
And  thereupon  he  delivers  himself  of  a  dissertation  (which  resembles 
nothing  so  much  as  a  sermon  of  “Fray  Gerundio  ”  to  his  “familiars”) 
on  the  necessity  of  using  scientific  terms  only  in  accordance  with  their 
exact  definitions,  of  ascertaining  the  meanings  of  the  words  mass  and 
motion  by  a  reference  to  the  methods  whereby  they  are  measured,  and 


7 


SO  on.  All  this  is  certainly  strange  news  to  an  author  who  has  de¬ 
voted  several  chapters  of  his  book  to  the  task  of  showing  that  the 
great  fundamental  vice  of  the  mechanical  theory  is  the  confusion  of 
concepts  with  things,  and  particularly  of  the  connotations  of  the  con¬ 
cept  mass  with  the  complement  of  the  properties  of  matter — who,  in 
a  word,  is  guilty  of  the  great  offense  of  expressing,  in  the  precise  terms 
of  the  science  of  logic,  what  Professor  Newcomb  is  staggering  at  with 
a  phrase  borrowed  from  some  elementary  treatise  on  grammar  ! 

And  here  I  am  tempted  to  do  a  little  Gerundian  preaching  myself, 
Professor  Newcomb  being,  of  course,  my  congregation  of  “familiars.” 
Here  is  my  sermon  :  H ombre  sabio  y  admirado,  scattering  supernal 
wisdom,  like  hurling  thunder-bolts,  is  a  prerogative  of  the  dwellers  on 
Olympus,  not  to  be  usurped  by  a  drag-footed  philosopher  bellowing  at 
its  base.  Quod  licet  Joci,  non  licet  bovi.  I  do  not  mean  to  question 
your  general  ruminant  powers  ;  but  you  have  delivered  yourself  of 
some  things  “  that  have  not  been  well  digested,”  and  had  better  be 
chewed  again.  Let  me  see  how  I  can  help  you.  Listen:  When  we 
speak  of  matter,  we  mean  something  which  not  only  has  weight,  pro¬ 
portional  to  its  mass,  but  which  has  all  manner  of  properties — optic, 
thermic,  electric,  magnetic,  chemical,  and  so  on.  Now,  in  the  light  of 
modern  science,  all  these  “properties”  are  regarded  as  modes  of  mo¬ 
tion,  if  I  may  be  permitted  to  use  the  expression  of  Professor  Tyndall. 
And  when  we  strip  matter  (in  thought,  you  understand)  of  all  these 
modes  of  motion,  we  have  nothing  left  but  inertia ,  which  is  but 
another  name  for  mass.  This  mass  is  not  a  concrete  thing,  but  a  con¬ 
cept  or  a  part  of  a  concept  ;  it  is,  as  you  say,  “  an  abstract  noun  like 
length.”  And  the  trouble  with  the  atomo-mechanical  theorists  is  their 
fancy  that  this  abstraction  is  a  thing  in  itself,  something  you  could 
look  at  if  you  had  a  telescope  with  sufficient  magnifying  power,  or 
which  you  could  weigh  and  measure  if  you  had  a  pair  of  scales  or  a 
chemical  reagent  sufficiently  delicate.  •  They  labor,  as  you  see,  under 
a  huge  mistake,  which,  in  charity,  ought  to  be  corrected.  Whenever 
you  find  real  matter,  you  have  mass  and  the  modes  of  motion  in  indis¬ 
soluble  synthesis  and  conjunction.  But  when  this  synthesis  is  broken 
by  the  destructive  analysis  of  the  mechanical  theorist  who  persists  in 
saying  that  things  consist  of  matter  and  motion,  you  are  bound  to  tell 
him  that  what  he  calls  matter  is  not  matter  at  all,  but  only  something 
which,  by  a  curious  law  of  our  thought,  we  are  bound  to  conceive  or 
imagine  as  a  substratum  of  motion — the  word  substratum  being  a  bar¬ 
barous  Latin  term  which  in  a  rough  way  signifies  what  is  supposed  to 
underlie  motion.  The  term  matter ,  as  used  by  those  deluded  people 
who  think  that  all  the  facts  of  this  world  can  be  explained  by  a  reso¬ 
lution  of  them  into  matter  and  energy,  or  matter  and  motion,  denotes 
simply  what  the  physicist  who  knows  what  he  is  talking  about  calls 
mass. 

And  now,  mind,  what  I  have  just  told  you  is  not  some  shallow  con- 


8 


ceit  hatched  under  my  own  time-tonsured  pate,  hut  genuine  wisdom 
which  I  have  simply  borrowed  from  an  old,  clear-headed  fellow,  who 
lived  and  died  a  long  while  ago — Leonhard  Euler.  If  you  will  read 
his  seventy -fourth  letter  to  a  German  princess,  written  on  the  11th  day 
of  November,  1760,  you  will  find  it  all  set  forth  at  great  length.  In 
reading  it  you  must  bear  in  mind,  though,  that  in  Euler’s  time  the  im¬ 
ponderables,  as  they  were  then  called,  were  not  so  distinctly  known  or 
believed  to  be  modes  of  motion  as  they  are  now.  And  you  must  also 
remember  that  he  was  writing  to  a  princess  who  probably  knew  more 
about  madrigals  and  operatic  airs  than  about  scientific  terms,  in  conse¬ 
quence  whereof  his  exposition  became  a  little  diffuse.  If,  however, 
you  should  reject  old  Euler’s  reasoning  as  “  belonging  to  a  past  age  of 
thought,”  which,  I  see,  is  one  of  your  favorite  ways  of  getting  rid  of 
irrefutable  truths,  I  may  refer  you  to  a  gentleman  who  is  yet  among 
the  living — Hermann  Helmholtz.  You  will  find  what  he  has  to  say  on 
the  “  matter  in  hand,”  on  the  third  and  fourth  pages  of  his  first  essay, 
“  Ueber  die  Erhaltung  der  Kraft  ”  (not  included  in  the  collection  of 
his  essays). 

Now,  hombre  querido  (I  am  still  preaching),  if  after  this  you  wTill 
carefully  read  again  the  first  twelve  chapters  of  my  book,  you  will 
probably  find  that  they  are  somewhat  less  absurd  than  you  fancied  they 
were.  But  you  will  say,  no  doubt — in  fact,  you  do  say,  though  not 
in  so  many  words — that  all  this  is  mere  speculative  trash,  in  which  the 
man  of  science  has  no  concern.  One  of  my  reviewers  in  the  New 
York  “  Critic  ” — whom  I  at  one  time  suspected,  perhaps  unjustly,  from 
certain  peculiarities  of  his  phraseology,  and  from  the  fact  that,  like 
yourself,  he  sneers  at  me  for  having  “wasted”  two  long  chapters  on 
transcendental  geometry,  of  having  had  oral  confabulations  with  you, 
in  which  the  mouth  of  the  speaker  was  not  and  could  not  be  applied 
to  the  ear  of  the  listener — disposes  of  my  discussion  of  the  relation  of 
the  mechanical  theory  to  the  laws  of  thought  by  the  following  oracu¬ 
lar  dictum  (a  travesty  of  a  saying  of  Carlyle) :  “A  sound  digestion  has 
little  self-consciousness  of  the  operations  of  the  stomach;  the  sound 
thinker  gives  himself  little  uneasiness^respecting  the  laws  of  thought.” 
I  can  not  stop,  at  this  moment,  to  show  you  how  and  why  a  little 
knowledge  of  the  laws  of  thought  is  useful  to  the  physicist  and  mathe¬ 
matician.  I  shall  come  to  that  by-and-by,  when  I  have  considered 
what  you  say  about  the  kinetic  theory  of  gases  and  space  of  an  indefi¬ 
nite  number  of  dimensions.  For  the  present  I  only  want  to  tell  you 
how  I  ventured  upon  the  audacity  of  intruding  the  theory  of  cognition 
into  the  science  of  physics. 

In  Europe,  as  well  as  in  this  country,  there  are  certain  idle  fellows 
who,  during  the  first  half  of  the  present  century,  for  want  of  more 
useful  occupation,  took  to  tracing  the  ramifications  of  forms  of  speech, 
and  finally  got  to  digging  for  their  roots.  These  absurd  persons 
abound  chiefly  in  Germany,  where,  as  you  know,  the  people  are  always. 


9 


m  the  nebular  regions,  when  they  ought  to  he  fighting  and  grubbing 
on  the  solid  ground  below.  In  course  of  time  these  individuals,  de¬ 
spite  the  utter  fatuity  of  their  undertaking,  persuaded  themselves  that 
they  were  engaged  in  something  important,  and  became  noisy  and  pre¬ 
sumptuous.  At  one  time  they  even  clamored  for  admission  into  the 
ranks  of  the  physicists  and  astronomers,  on  the  ground  that  they  had 
discovered  phonetic  and  other  laws,  which  they  claimed  to  be  as  im¬ 
mutable  as  the  laws  of  Kepler.  Their  application  was,  of  course, 
scornfully  denied,  for  the  reason  that  they  were  either  no  scientists  at 
all,  or  at  best  speculative  scientists.  Instead  of  submitting  humbly 
to  this  just  decree  of  the  physicists  (it  is  a  pity  they  had  not  my  pres¬ 
ent  meekness  before  them  as  an  example),  these  men  grew  wrathy  and 
turned  away  with  something  like  this  objurgation  :  “  Well,  never  mind, 
the  time  is  not  far  distant  when  you  will  come  as  suppliants  to  us.” 
And,  thereupon,  in  sheer  malice,  having  got  well-nigh  through  with 
the  roots  and  branches  of  words,  they  fell  to  attacking  the  history  of 
their  meanings — of  concepts,  as  they  called  them — pretending  to  make 
legitimate  employment  of  inductive  methods,  which  they  wholly  mis¬ 
apprehended,  no  doubt,  and  which,  at  any  rate,  were  among  the  clear 
prerogatives  of  the  physicists.  And  now  they  pretend  to  have  estab¬ 
lished,  inductively ,  a  number  of  laws  relating  to  the  operations  of  the 
intellect,  which  they  again  assert  to  be  immutable,  and,  though  con¬ 
trolling  acts  of  consciousness,  to  be  wholly  independent  of  deliberate 
intent  or  set  purpose.  They  say,  for  instance,  that  there  runs  through¬ 
out  the  history  of  speculative  as  well  as  of  ordinary  thinking  an 
almost  irrepressible  tendency  to  hypostasize  concepts,  or  (as  I  have 
called  it,  cribbing  an  outrageous  barbarism  from  Professor  Bain)  to 
reify  them.  I  will  try  to  explain  to  you  what  that  means,  as  nearly  as 
possible  in  your  own  words.  When  people  make  or  find  a  new  “  ab¬ 
stract  noun,”  they  instantly  try  to  put  it  on  a  shelf  or  into  a  box,  as 
though  it  were  a  thing  ;  thus  they  reify  it.  In  very  early  times  they 
did  worse  than  that — they  undertook  to  incase  it  in  a  smock-frock  or 
a  pair  of  breeches.  They  personified  it.  There  was  a  still  earlier 
period  when,  worst  of  all,  men  blasphemously  and  impiously  deified 
abstractions  ;  and  it  is  said  that  this  class  of  persons  has  not  wholly 
died  out  yet. 

Now,  the  silly  speculators  I  have  just  alluded  to  have  already  di¬ 
vided  the  science  they  pretend  to  be  cultivating  into  several  branches, 
to  which,  being  word-mongers,  they  give  all  sorts  of  sesquipedalian 
names,  such  as  comparative  linguistics,  comparative  psychology,  com¬ 
parative  mythology,  and  so  forth.  To  give  you  an  idea  of  the  temer¬ 
ity  of  these  pseudo-scientists,  let  me  tell  you  that  one  of  them,  Professor 
Max  Muller,  of  Oxford — who  is,  of  course,  a  German — at  one  time 
undertook  to  account  for  the  monotheism  of  the  Jewish  race  by  a 
peculiarity  of  Semitic  speech.  It  is  even  whispered  that  he  and  others, 
years  ago,  evolved  the  whole  city  of  Troy,  with  all  its  houses  and 


10 


walls,  the  heroes  within  it,  with  their  wives  and  children,  as  well  as 
the  Greek  warriors  and  their  ships,  without  it — everything,  including 
the  Trojan  horse  and  what  it  contained — from  a  parcel  of  solar  myths, 
demonstrating  to  their  own  satisfaction  that  all  these  persons  and 
things  were,  at  bottom,  nothing  more  than  “  objectivations  ”  of  forms 
and  laws  of  speech.  As  was  to  be  expected,  this  fine  theory  came  to 
grief  when  Schliemann  appeared  with  a  pickaxe  and  spade.  As  usual, 
the  theory  collapsed  in  the  presence  of  the  facts.  Be  that  as  it  may, 
there  is  one  thing  these  scientific  pretenders  persist  in  asserting,  in 
spite  of  all  their  past  discomfitures  :  that  more  than  three  fourths  of 
the  controversies  in  theology  and  metaphysics  have  had  their  rise  in 
the  ignorance  of  the  fathers  of  the  Church,  and  of  mediaeval  and 
modern  scholastics,  of  the  results  brought  to  light  in  these  new-fangled 
sciences.  Unfortunately,  when  I  was  less  old  and  wary  than  I  am 
now,  I  fell  in  with  these  “  paradoxers,”  some  of  whom  I  knew  to  be 
men  of  great  learning,  and  believed  to  be  persons  of  thorough  earnest¬ 
ness  of  purpose.  To  my  astonishment  I  found  two  mathematicians 
among  them — Hermann  Grassmann  and  Franz  Woepcke.  I  had  read 
with  some  difficulty,  but,  as  I  thought,  with  reasonable  grasp  of  his 
meaning,  the  “  Ausdehnungslehre  ”  (since  supplemented  by  a  new 
treatise  under  nearly  the  same  title,  and  a  number  of  articles  in 
Crelle’s  and  Borchardt’s  “  Journal  ”)  of  Grassmann  ;  and  I  had  at¬ 
tempted  to  read  some  of  the  writings  of  Woepcke,  though  without 
success,  because  he  went  far  beyond  my  depth.  But  I  got  an  impres¬ 
sion  that  both  had  things  to  say — in  mathematics,  at  least — that  were 
worth  knowing  ;  and  inferred  that  there  must  be  sense  and  purpose 
also  in  their  linguistic  endeavors.  In  this  way  I  became  interested, 
and  gradually  caught  the  spirit  of  the  comparative  linguists  and  my- 
thologists  by  contagion.  And  so  it  came  to  pass  that,  after  a  while,  I 
asked  myself  this  question  :  “  If  the  results  of  these  sciences  are  avail¬ 
able  for  the  solution  of  the  perplexities  of  the  metaphysicians,  why 
may  they  not  also  throw  some  light  on  the  nature  of  our  perplexities 
in  physics  ?  ”  So  far  as  I  could  learn,  no  one  had  attempted  an  orderly 
and  systematic  answer  to  this  question,  although  (as  is  not  unusual  in 
cases  of  this  sort)  there  was  a  considerable  amount  of  scattered  mate¬ 
rial  ready  to  the  hand  of  whomsoever  should  undertake  the  work. 
Under  these  circumstances,  I  was  fool-hardy  enough  to  make  an  at¬ 
tempt  myself,  the  result  being  my  poor  little  book.  And  now  I  con¬ 
fess  I  am  not  a  little  mortified  at  being  informed  that  I  am  a  “  learned 
and  able”  idiot ;  and  I  derive  but  scant  comfort  from  the  assurance 
that  my  mental  predicament  may  be  accounted  for  on  the  theory  of 
contagion,  and  that  the  hypothesis  of  congenital  imbecility  may  be 
avoided. 

But  it  is  time  to  doff  my  Gerundian  robes  and  to  cease  apostro¬ 
phizing  the  familiars,  for  I  have  things  to  say  which  ought  to  be  said 
in  all  earnestness  and  sobriety.  I  am  about  to  examine  Professor 


11 


Newcomb’s  animadversions  on  my  chapters  on  the  kinetic  theory  of 
gases  and  transcendental  geometry.  On  the  former  he  expatiates  as 
follows  : 

For  the  benefit  of  the  n on-scientific  reader  we  may  say  that  there  is  no 
theory  of  modern  physics,  the  processes  supposed  by  which  are  invisible  to  di¬ 
rect  vision,  which  is  more  thoroughly  established  than  this.  It  explains  with 
the  utmost  simplicity  and  without  introducing  any  but  the  best  known  prop¬ 
erties  of  molecules,  a  great  number  of  diverse  phenomena,  seemingly  incapable 
of  explanation  in  any  other  way.  The  only  objection  of  the  author  which  we 
can  completely  understand  is  that  the  theory  in  question — i.  e.,  the  kinetic  theory 
of  gases — seems  to  him  incompatible  with  his  own  favorite  doctrine  that  mole¬ 
cules  are  inelastic.  Should  he  have  any  hesitation  in  pitting  his  a  priori  idea 
against  so  widely  received  a  theory,  it  should  relieve  him  to  know  that  the  sup¬ 
posed  antagonism  arises  only  from  his  own  misapprehension.  No  elasticity  is 
assigned  the  molecules  in  the  Tcinetic  theory ,  hut  only  an  insuperable ,  repulsive 
force  which  causes  the  molecules  to  repel  each  other  when  they  are  brought  suffi¬ 
ciently  near  together.  The  reader  who  has  any  interest  in  following  the  author 
in  his  attempt  to  show  that  Maxwell  and  his  colaborers  were  guilty  of  a  long 
series  of  fallacies  and  errors  in  attempting  to  prove  the  theory  in  question,  may 
read  the  chapter,  as  an  abstract  is  impossible. 

So  “  no  elasticity  is  assigned  to  the  molecules  in  the  kinetic  the¬ 
ory.”  Well,  that  is  startling  news  indeed  !  I  hope  it  has  been  con¬ 
veyed  to  Sir  William  Thomson,  who  at  latest  accounts  was  still  en¬ 
gaged  in  the  arduous,  but,  as  we  are  now  informed  by  Professor 
Newcomb,  utterly  useless  study  of  vortex-rings,  which  he  hopes  to 
make  available  as  substitutes  for  elastic  atoms  or  ultimate  molecules. 
At  the  last  meeting  of  the  British  Association  Sir  William  Thomson 
read  a  paper  “  On  the  Average  Pressure  due  to  the  Impulse  of  Vortex- 
Rings  on  a  Solid,”  of  which  an  abstract  is  published  in  “  Nature  ” 
for  May  12,  1881  (vol.  xxiv,  pp.  47,  48).  In  this  paper  Sir  William 
says  : 

The  pressure  exerted  by  a  gas  composed  of  vortex-atoms  is  exactly  the 
same  as  is  given  by  the  ordinary  kinetic  theory,  which  regards  the  atoms  as  hard 
elastic  particles. 

I  do  not  deem  it  necessary  to  multiply  quotations  from  the  writings 
of  other  scientific  men  in  support  of  my  statement  that  the  kinetic 
theory  of  gases  can  not  dispense  with  the  assumption  of  the  elasticity 
of  ultimate  molecules.  No  intelligent  reader  who  has  glanced  at  page 
42  of  my  book  can  be  in  any  doubt  as  to  what  is  taught  on  the  subject 
by  the  founders  and  promoters  of  the  theory  in  question.  But  I  will 
add  one  citation,  because  it  is  from  a  book  to  which  I  shall  have  occa¬ 
sion  to  refer  for  another  purpose.  The  most  thorough  mathematical 
treatise  on  the  kinetic  theory  of  gases,  indorsed  as  such  by  Clerk 
Maxwell,  is  the  well-known  little  book  of  Henry  William  Watson.  It 
is  in  the  form  of  propositions  ;  and  the  very  first  words  of  the  first 
proposition  are  these  : 


12 


A  very  great  number  of  smooth,  elastic  spheres,  equal  in  every  respect,  are  • 
in  motion  within  a  region  of  space  of  a  given  volume,  and  therefore  occasionally 
impinge  upon  each  other  with  various  degrees  of  relative  velocity,  and  in  various 
directions. 

The  italics  in  this  passage,  as  well  as  in  all  past  and  future  quota¬ 
tions,  are  mine. 

In  justice  to  Professor  Newcomb,  however,  we  must  look  at  his 
entire  sentence,  which  is  this  :  “  No  elasticity  is  assigned,  to  the  mole¬ 
cules  in  the  kinetic  theory,  but  only  an  insuperable, ,  repulsive  force , 
which  causes  the  molecules  to  repel  each  other  v:hen  they  are  brought 
sufficiently  near  together .”  This  information,  Professor  Newcomb 
hopes,  will  “relieve  me.”  I  am  indeed  relieved!  What  the  learned 
professor  tells  me  in  the  last  part  of  his  sentence  certainly  simplifies 
matters  to  the  last  degree.  All  that  needs  be  assigned  to  the  mole¬ 
cules  is  an  “insuperable  repulsive  force.”  Such  a  force  is  the  greatest 
convenience  for  the  physicist  that  can  possibly  be  devised  ;  it  not  only 
effects  a  simple  and  satisfactory  solution  of  the  difficulties  set  forth  in 
my  fourth  and  eighth  chapters,  but  it  enables  us  at  once  to  get  over 
every  other  difficulty  that  may  be  suggested.  It  is  singular  that  Sir 
Isaac  Newton  did  not  understand  this  when  he  was  distressed  about 
the  mechanism  of  gravitation  ;  for,  obviously,  all  that  is  required  to 
explain  it  is  to  assign  to  the  molecules  an  attractive  force.  Sir  Isaac’s 
ignorance  is  all  the  more  remarkable  because,  coming  to  think  of  it,  I 
now  recollect  that  the  philosophy  of  which  Professor  Newcomb  is  the 
able  exponent  was  very  clearly  set  forth,  just  fourteen  years  before 
the  appearance  of  Newton’s  “Principia,”  in  a  profound  metaphysical 
treatise  published  by  one  Jean-Baptiste  Poquelin  (otherwise  called 
Moliere)  under  the  somewhat  whimsical  title  “Le  Malade  Imaginaire.” 
Toward  the  close  of  that  great  work  (which  is  in  the  form  of  dia¬ 
logues),  one  of  the  interlocutors,  Bachelierus,  philosophizes  as  follows  : 

“  Milii  a  docto  doctore 
Domandatur  causam  et  rationem  quare 
Opium  facit  dormire. 

A  quoi  respondeo 
Quia  est  in  eo 
Virtus  dormitiva 
Cujus  est  natura 
Sensus  assoupire.” 

Of  course,  we  are  not  to  be  embarrassed  by  anything  John  Ber¬ 
noulli  has  written  about  “  insuperable  forces  ”  as  mathematical  or  phys¬ 
ical  functions  ;  nor  is  it  worth  while  to  be  disturbed  by  considerations 
respecting  the  effect  of  their  assumption  upon  the  doctrine  of  the  con¬ 
servation  of  energy. 

Professor  Newcomb’s  indignation  at  my  treatment  of  the  kinetic 
theory  of  gases  is  very  great  indeed.  “  There  is  no  theory  of  modern 
physics,”  he  says,  “  the  processes  supposed  by  which  are  invisible  to 


13 


•direct  vision,  which  is  more  thoroughly  established  than  this.  It  ex¬ 
plains  with  the  utmost  simplicity ,  and  without  introducing  any  but  the 
best-known  properties  of  molecules,  a  great  number  of  diverse  phenom¬ 
ena  seemingly  incapable  of  explanation  in  any  other  way .”  Now,  it 
is  a  great  pity  that  these  glad  tidings  did  not  reach  Professor  Clerk 
Maxwell  before  he  was  laid  to  rest  in  his  early  grave.  They  would 
certainly  have  been  a  great  comfort  to  him,  and  possibly  might  have 
prolonged  his  life.  For  there  is  reason  to  suspect  that  in  his  latter 
days  he  arrived  at  conclusions  respecting  the  kinetic  theory  of  gases 
which  bear  a  strange  resemblance  to  my  own.  Being,  not  a  scientific 
dogmatist,  but  an  honest  and  candid  investigator  in  search  of  truth,  he 
came  to  see  with  ever-increasing  clearness  that  the  difficulties  of  his 
favorite  theory  beset  not  only  its  fundamental  assumptions,  but  also 
their  inevitable  consequences,  especially  in  their  bearings  upon  the 
theory  of  heat.  After  the  appearance  of  Watson’s  treatise  already 
adverted  to,  on  the  26th  day  of  July,  1877,  he  published  in  “Nature” 
(vol.  xvi,  No.  404)  a  review  of  it,  in  which  he  considered  the  signifi¬ 
cance  of  Mr.  Watson’s  propositions  in  connection  with  certain  matters 
discussed  on  pages  97,  99,  and  127  of  my  book.  And  thereupon  he 
made  this  declaration  (“Nature,”  vol.  xvi,  p.  245)  : 

The  clear  way  in  which  Mr.  Watson  has  demonstrated  these  propositions 
leaves  us  no  escape  from  the  terrible  generality  of  his  results.  Some  of  these,  no 
doubt,  are  very  satisfactory  to  us  in  our  present  state  of  opinion  about  the  con¬ 
stitution  of  bodies,  but  there  are  others  which  are  likely  to  startle  us  out  of  our 
complacency,  and  perhaps  ultimately  to  drive  us  out  of  all  the  hypotheses  in 
which  hitherto  we  have  found  refuge  into  that  state  of  conscious  ignorance  which 
is  the  prelude  to  every  real  advance  in  knowledge.  * 

I  hope,  by-the-way,  that  this  last  remark  of  the  great  scientist  will 
be  pondered  by  those  who  complain  that,  after  demolishing,  as  they 
imagine,  all  current  physical  theories,  I  leave  them  in  the  midst  of  ruins, 
and  do  not  at  once  present  them  with  a  golden  key  for  unlocking  all 
the  mysteries  of  the  universe,  or,  like  Puck,  in  “  Midsummer-Night’s 
Dream,”  “  put  a  [theoretical]  girdle  round  about  the  earth  in  forty 
minutes.” 

Before  I  leave  this  subject,  I  take  the  liberty  of  quoting  another 
passage  from  the  same  article,  which  Professor  Newcomb,  if  he  knows 
anything  about  the  discussions  to  which  the  kinetic  theory  of  gases 
has  given  rise,  will  find  instructive.  Speaking  of  Boltzmann’s  attempt 
to  reconcile  the  elasticity  of  atoms  with  their  rigidity  by  increasing 
their  co-efficients  of  elasticity  ad  infinitum ,  so  as  to  make  them  practi¬ 
cally  rigid — a  supposition  also  developed  in  an  essay  of  Hugo  Fritsch 
in  Konigsberg,  entitled  “Stoss  zweier  Massen  unter  der  Vorausset- 
zung  ihrer  TJndurchdringlichkeit  behandelt,”  which  does  not  seem  to 
have  fallen  under  Professor  Maxwell’s  notice  (and,  I  may  add,  a  sup¬ 
position  of  which  Professor  Newcomb’s  “insuperable  force”  may 


14 


be  a  vague  reminiscence) — Maxwell  says  (“Nature,”  vol.  xvi,  pp. 
245,  246): 

But,  before  we  accept  this  somewhat  promising  hypothesis,  let  us  try  to  con¬ 
struct  a  rigid-elastic  body.  It  will  not  do  to  increase  the  co-efficients  of  elasticity 
without  limit  till  the  body  becomes  'practically  rigid.  For  such  a  body,  though 
apparently  rigid,  is  in  reality  capable  of  internal  vibrations,  and  these  of  an 
infinite  variety  of  types,  so  that  the  body  has  an  infinite  number  of  degrees  of 
freedom. 

The  same  objection  applies  to  all  atoms  constructed  of  continuous,  non-rigid 
matter,  such  as  the  vortex-atoms  of  Thomson.  Such  atoms  would  soon  convert 
all  their  energy  of  agitation  into  internal  energy,  and  the  specific  heat  of  a  sub¬ 
stance  composed  of  them  would  be  infinite. 

A  truly  rigid-elastic  body  is  one  whose  encounters  with  similar  bodies  take 
place  as  if  both  were  elastic,  but  which  is  not  capable  of  being  set  into  a  state  of 
internal  vibration.  We  must  take  a  perfectly  rigid  body  and  endow  it  with  the 
power  of  repelling  all  other  bodies,  but  only  when  they  come  within  a  very 
short  distance  from  its  surface,  but  then  so  strongly  that  under  no  circumstances 
whatever  can  any  body  come  into  actual  contact  with  it. 

This  appears  to  be  the  only  constitution  we  can  imagine  for  a  rigid-elastic 
body.  And,  now  that  we  have  got  it,  the  best  thing  we  can  do  is  to  get  rid  of 
the  rigid  nucleus  altogether,  and  substitute  for  it  an  atom  of  Boscovich — a  math¬ 
ematical  point  endowed  with  mass  and  with  powers  of  acting  at  a  distance  on 
other  atoms. 

But  Boltzmann’s  molecules  are  not  absolutely  rigid.  He  admits  that  they 
vibrate  after  collisions,  and  that  their  vibrations  are  of  several  different  types, 
as  the  spectroscope  tells  us.  But  still  he  tries  to  make  us  believe  that  these 
vibrations  are  of  small  importance  as  regards  the  principal  part  of  the  motion  of 
the  molecules.  He  compares  them  to  billiard-balls,  which,  when  they  strike 
each  other,  vibrate  for  a  short  time,  but  soon  give  up  the  energy  of  their 
vibration  to  the  air,  which  carries  far  and  wide  the  sound  of  the  click  of 
the  balls. 

In  like  manner,  the  light  emitted  by  the  molecules  shows  that  their  internal 
vibrations  after  each  collision  are  quickly  given  up  to  the  luminiferous  ether. 
If  we  were  to  suppose  that  at  ordinary  temperatures  the  collisions  are  not  severe 
enough  to  produce  any  internal  vibrations,  and  that  these  occur  only  at  temper¬ 
atures  like  that  of  the  electric  spark,  at  which  wTe  can  not  make  measurements 
of  specific  heat,  we  might,  perhaps,  reconcile  the  spectroscopic  results  with  what 
we  know  about  specific  heat. 

But  the  fixed  position  of  the  bright  lines  of  a  gas  shows  that  the  vibrations  are 
isochronous,  and  therefore  that  the  forces  which  they  call  into  play  vary  directly 
as  the  relative  displacements,  and,  if  this  be  the  character  of  the  forces,  all  im¬ 
pacts,  how  ever  slight,  will  produce  vibrations.  Besides  this,  even  at  ordinary 
temperatures,  in  certain  gases,  such  as  iodine  gas  and  nitrous  acid,  absorption 
bands  exist,  which  indicate  that  the  molecules  are  set  into  internal  vibration  by 
the  incident  light.  The  molecules,  therefore,  are  capable,  as  Boltzmann  points 
out,  of  exchanging  energy  with  the  ether.  But  we  can  .not  force  the  ether  inta 
the  service  of  our  theory  so  as  to  take  from  the  molecules  their  energy  of  inter¬ 
nal  vibration,  and  give  it  back  to  them  as  energy  of  translation.  It  can  not  in 
any  way  interfere  with  the  ratio  between  these  two  kinds  of  energy  which  Boltz¬ 
mann  himself  has  established.  All  it  can  do  is  to  take  up  its  own  due  propor¬ 
tion  of  energy  according  to  the  number  of  its  degrees  of  freedom.  AVe  leave  it 


15 


to  the  authors  of  “The  Unseen  Universe”  to  follow  out  the  consequences  of  this 
statement. 

I  may  safely  take  it  for  granted  after  this,  I  presume,  that,  while 
Professor  Newcomb  may  have  a  vocation  for  expounding  and  defend¬ 
ing  the  kinetic  theory  of  gases,  he  has  no  special  call,  as  he  supposes, 
to  stand  up  for  Clerk  Maxwell  and  his  opinions. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  Professor  Newcomb  does  not 
honor  my  objections  to  the  kinetic  theory  of  gases  with  any  notice  or 
attempt  at  refutation.  He  observes  that  “an  abstract  of  them  is  im¬ 
possible,”  which  is  to  be  regretted,  for,  if  he  had  undertaken  to  give 
us  one,  we  should  undoubtedly  have  learned  some  noteworthy  things. 
The  task  of  making  such  an  abstract  does  not  appear  to  be  very  dif¬ 
ficult.  What  I  insist  on  is,  that  every  valid  physical  theory  is  essen¬ 
tially  a  simplification  and  not  a  complication,  a  reduction  of  the  number 
of  unrelated  facts  which  it  undertakes  to  account  for,  and  not  a  mere 
substitution  of  many  arbitrary  assumptions  of  unknown  and  unverifiable 
facts  for  a  few  known  facts — that  is  to  say,  speaking  in  the  language 
of  mathematics,  that  every  true  physical  theory  is  in  effect  a  reduction 
of  the  number  of  independent  variables  representing  the  phenomena 
to  be  explained.  And  I  show  that  the  kinetic  theory  of  gases  not  only~ 
fails  to  satisfy  this  requirement,  but  is  a  complete  reversal  of  a  legiti¬ 
mate  scientific  procedure.  This  is  the  sense  of  the  passage  which  Pro¬ 
fessor  Newcomb  parades  before  the  unwary  reader,  whom  he  ought  to 
have  shocked  still  more  with  my  horrible  suggestion  (which  I  now 
deliberately  repeat)  that  a  gas  is  in  its  nature  a  simpler  thing  than  a 
solid,  and  that  no  attempt  to  account  for  its  properties  by  taking  those 
of  a  solid  as  a  basis  and  making  arbitrary  additions  to  them  is  likely 
ever  to  succeed. 

It  is  not  a  little  instructive  to  note  the  character  of  sacredness  as¬ 
cribed  by  persons  of  Professor  Newcomb’s  frame  of  mind  to  dominant 
physical  theories,  and  the  violence  with  which  they  repel  every  attempt 
to  point  out  their  defects.  My  reviewer  in  “  The  Critic  ”  is  almost  be¬ 
side  himself  after  reading  my  “assault”  on  “that  magnificent  fabric 
of  science,  the  undulatory  theory  of  light  and  heat.”  Before  he  pelts 
me  again  with  his  missiles,  he  will  do  well  to  look  and  see  who  is 
standing  at  the  place  to  which  he  directs  them.  There  is  at  Harvard 
University  a  most  learned  and  laborious  scientist  whose  merits  as  an 
original  investigator  are  at  least  equal,  if  not  superior,  to  his  inestima¬ 
ble  services  as  an  expounder  of  scientific  truth,  and  the  extent  of  whose 
attainments  is  no  less  conspicuous  in  his  memoirs  and  books  than  the 
clearness  of  his  intellect — Professor  Josiah  P.  Cooke,  Jr.  In  May, 
1878,  Professor  Cooke  published  a  lecture  on  the  radiometer  in  this 
journal  (“  Popular  Science  Monthly  ”),  in  which  he  had  occasion  to 
speak  of  the  undulatory  theory  of  light  and  the  luminiferous  ether. 
And  there  (pages  11,  12)  we  find  this  language  : 

But  turn  now  to  the  astronomers,  and  learn  what  they  have  to  tell  us  in  re- 


16 


gard  to  the  assumed  luminiferous  ether  through  which  all  this  energy  is  supposed 
to  be  transmitted.  Our  planet  is  rushing  in  its  orbit  around  the  sun  at  an  aver¬ 
age  rate  <>f  over  1,000  miles  a  minute,  and  makes  its  annual  journey  of  some 
550,000,000  miles  in  365  days,  6  hours,  9  seconds,  and  of  a  second.  Mark  the 
tenths ;  for  astronomical  observations  are  so  accurate  that,  if  the  length  of  the 
year  varied  permanently  by  the  tenth  of  a  second,  we  should  know  it;  and  you  can 
readily  understand  that,  if  there  were  a  medium  in  space  which  offered  as  much 
resistance  to  the  motion  of  the  earth  as  would  gossamer  threads  to  a  race-horse, 
the  planet  could  never  come  up  to  time,  year  after  year,  to  the  tenth  of  a  second. 

How,  then,  can  we  save  our  theory,  by  which  we  set  so  much,  and  rightly, 
because  it  has  helped  us  so  effectively  in  studying  Nature  ?  If  we  may  be  allowed 
such  an  extravagant  solecism,  let  us  suppose  that  the  engineer  of  our  previous 
illustration  was  the  hero  of  a  fairy-tale.  lie  has  built  a  mill,  set  a  steam-engine 
in  the  basement,  arranged  his  spindles  above,  and  is  connecting  the  pulleys  by 
the  usual  belts,  when  some  stern  necessity  requires  him  to  transmit  all  the  energy 
with  cobwebs.  Of  course,  a  good  fairy  comes  to  his  aid,  and  what  does  she  do? 
Simply  makes  the  cobwebs  indefinitely  strong.  So  the  physicists,  not  to  be  out¬ 
done  by  any  fairies,  make  their  ether  indefinitely  elastic,  and  their  theory  lands 
them  just  here,  with  a  medium  filling  all  space,  thousands  of  times  more  elastic 
than  steel,  and  thousands  on  thousands  of  times  less  dense  than  hydrogen  gas. 
There  must  be  a  fallacy  somewhere,  and  I  strongly  suspect  it  is  to  be  found  in 
our  ordinary  materialistic  notions  of  causation,  which  involve  the  old  metaphys¬ 
ical  dogma,  “ nulla  actio  in  distansf  and  which  in  our  day  have  culminated  in 
the  famous  apothegm  of  the  German  materialist ,  '"Rein  Phosphor ,  Tcein  GedankeP 

If  my  reviewer  will  compare  this  passage  with  what  I  have  said  on 
the  undulatory  theory,  he  will,  perhaps,  discover  that  my  observations 
are  at  least  proof  against  the  charge  of  frivolity  and  irrelevancy. 
And  it  is  not  necessary  to  add,  I  hope,  that  it  is  no  more  my  intention 
than  that  of  Professor  Cooke  to  call  upon  the  physicist  to  throw 
away  the  undulatory  theory  as  a  working  hypothesis  before  he  has' a 
better  one. 

I  now  come  to  Professor  Newcomb’s  reflections  on  my  discussion 
of  transcendental  geometry.  Here  are  some  of  them  : 

In  considering  the  author’s  work  in  detail,  we  begin  with  the  subject  of  tran¬ 
scendental  geometry,  or  hyper-geometry,  as  it  is  sometimes  called.  We  do  this 
because  his  criticisms  are  so  readily  disposed  of.  He  speaks  of  the  “new  geo¬ 
metrical  faith  ”  ;  of  the  “  dispute  ”  between  the  “  disciples  ”  of  the  transcendental 
■or  pangeometrical  school  and  the  “  adherents  ”  of  the  old  geometrical  faith  ;  of 
the  “champions”  of  the  old  geometrical  creed;  of  the  “doctrine”  of  hyper¬ 
space.  To  the  refutation  of  these  supposed  erroneous  doctrines  he  devotes  no 
less  than  sixty-two  pages.  Now,  all  his  criticism  is  founded  on  an  utter  mis¬ 
apprehension  of  the  scope  and  meaning  of  what  he  is  criticising.  We  make  bold 
to  say  that  no  mathematician  has  ever  pretended  to  have  the  slightest  evidence 
that  space  has  four  dimensions,  or  was  in  any  way  different  from  what  is  taught 
in  our  familiar  system  of  geometry.  He  has  not  been  an  adherent  or  champion, 
or  held  any  doctrine  on  the  subject.  Now  and  then  it  is  barely  possible  that  a 
physicist  might  be  found — Zollner,  for  instance — suggesting  such  a  thing  in  a 
moment  of  aberration.  But  the  great  mass  of  men  in  their  senses  remain  unaf¬ 
fected  by  any  such  idea. 


17 


Again  : 

Whatever  we  may  say  of  the  utility  of  such  investigations,  one  thing  is  cer¬ 
tain — they  are  perfectly  harmless.  At  the  very  worst  they  can  do  no  more 
injury  to  scientific  conceptions  than  the  careless  author  of  an  elementary  algebra 
will  do  his  pupil  by  loading  an  hypothetical  baker’s  wagcn  with  more  loaves  of 
bread  than  the  baker  could  get  into  it.  If  Judge  Stallo  had  taken  up  a  book  on 
algebra,  found  a  problem  the  answer  to  which  required  five  thousand  loaves 
of  bread  to  be  carried  by  a  single  baker,  and  had  devoted  sixty  two  pages  to  an 
elaborate  statistical  and  mechanical  proof  that  no  wagon  could  possibly  hold 
that  number  of  loaves,  his  criticisms  would  have  been  as  valuable  and  perti¬ 
nent  as  those  which  he  devotes  to  his  imaginary  school  of  pangeometry. 

After  reading  these  passages  I  am  sorely  perplexed.  When  Pro¬ 
fessor  Newcomb  penned  them  he  had  before  him  my  extracts  (in  a 
note  to  page  211  of  my  hook)  from  the  Exeter  address  of  Professor 
Sylvester,  embodying  a  reference  to  the  speculations  of  Professor  Clif¬ 
ford,  and  another  independent  citation  from  Clifford’s  writings  cn  page 
213.  And,  being  himself  a  writer  on  geometry  of  more  than  three 
dimensions,  he  can  hardly  have  been  ignorant  of  the  many  other  pan- 
geometrical  speculations  respecting  the  necessity  of  assuming  the  ex¬ 
istence  of  a  fourth  dimension  for  the  purpose  of  explaining  certain 
optic  and  magnetic  phenomena.  There  are  mathematicians  and  phys¬ 
icists  in  Europe — excellent  mathematicians  qnd  physicists,  too — who 
maintain  that  space  must  have  a|b  teart  fourJdhnensions!'  because  with¬ 
out  it  a  reconciliation  of  Avogaaro’s  law  with  the  first  proposition  of 
the  atomo-mechanical  theory  is  impossible.  According  to  them,  experi¬ 
ence  shows  that  matter  has  not  only  extension  but  also  intension ,  which 
directly  evidences  the  actual  existence  of  a  fourth  dimension  in  space. 
Among  those  who  advocate  views  like  this  is  Professor  Ernst  Mach,  in 
Prague.  How,  in  the  face  of  all  this,  Professor  Newcomb  could  have 
the  hardihood  to  assure  his  readers  that  no  mathematician  has  ever 
pretended  that  space  has  more  than  three  dimensions,  I  am  at  a  loss 
to  understand.- 

But  it  is  not  worth  while  to  quarrel  with  him  on  this  head  ;  for 
his  statement ,  that  I  devote  sixty-two  pages  to  the  attempt  at  proving 
that  space  has  in  fact  hut  three  dimensions ,  is  a  pitiful  misrepresen¬ 
tation, ,  alcin  to  the  statement  that  I  am  the  defender  of  the  propositions 
of  the  atomo-mechanical  theory.  In  my  two  chapters  on  transcendent¬ 
al  geometry  there  is  not  a  page,  not  even  a  line,  devoted  to  such  an 
undertaking.  I  discuss  two  main  questions  :  first,  whether  or  not  it  is 
true,  as  Lobatschewsky,  Riemann,  and  Helmholtz  assert,  that  space  is 
a  real  thing,  an  object  of  direct  sensation  whose  “  properties,”  such  as 
the  number  of  its  dimensions  and  the  form  or  degree  of  its  inherent 
curvature,  are  to  be  ascertained  by  observation  and  experiment — by 
telescopic  observation,  for  instance  ;  and,  secondly,  whether  or  not 
the  empirical  possibility  and  character  of  several  kinds  of  space  can 
be  deduced  a  priori  from  the  concept  of  an  n-fold  extended  multiple. 


18 


or  from  the  abstract  concept  “  quantity,”  using  this  term  as  compre¬ 
hending  both  algebraic  “  quantities  ”  and  geometrical  magnitudes.  As 
subsidiary  to  these  questions  I  also  discuss  certain  minor  questions* 
such  as  that  of  the  representability  of  non-homaloidal  forms  of  space  ; 
but  upon  the  proof  that  there  is  actually  no  such  thing  as  non-homa¬ 
loidal  or  four-dimensional  space  I  do  not  waste  a  syllable.  In  other 
'words  (which  Professor  Newcomb  may  find  more  intelligible,  perhaps)  : 
my  first  inquiry  is,  not  whether  any  one  has  ever  discovered  a  fourth 
dimension  or  an  inherent  spatial  crook  by  looking  through  a  telescope, 
but  whether  there  would  be  any  use  or  sense  in  trying  to  make  such  a 
discovery  by  looking  through  a  telescope,  even  if  we  could  get  a  base¬ 
line  large  enough  to  meet  the  requirements  of  Professor  Helmholtz  ; 
and  my  second  inquiry  is,  whether  or  not  there  is  any  world-producing 
potency  in  an  algebraic  formula  or  an  “  abstract  noun.” 

Professor  Newcomb  claims  that  investigations  respecting  geometry 
of  more  than  three  dimensions  are  at  least  harmless,  and  even  useful, 
inasmuch  as  “they  have  thrown  a  flood  of  light  on  the  origin  and 
meaning  of  geometrical  axioms.”  My  answer  to  this  is,  that  specula¬ 
tions  of  this  sort  are  harmless  only  so  long  as  it  is  not  pretended  that 
they  can  teach  us  anything  respecting  either  empirical  reality  or  em¬ 
pirical  possibility.  And  they  can  throw  light  on  the  origin  and  mean¬ 
ing  of  geometrical  axioms  only  by  giving  us  an  insight  into  the  nature 
of  the  forms  or  modes  in  which  the  world  of  objective  reality  is  or 
may  be  reproduced  in  the  intellect.  But  what  shall  we  say,  then, 
about  the  grin  at  speculation  in  science  which  stares  at  us  from  the 
very  title  of  Professor  Newcomb’s  article  ?  If  he  may  throw  a  flood 
of  light  on  the  foundations  of  geometry,  by  speculating  about  space 
of  four  dimensions,  am  I  to  be  jeered  at  when  I  endeavor  to  direct  a 
feeble  ray  from  the  general  theory  of  cognition  on  the  same  subject — 
when  I  try  to  do  methodically  what  he  is  doing  at  random,  and  with¬ 
out  the  least  suspicion  that  anything  more  is  necessary  for  the  accom¬ 
plishment  of  his  purpose  than  skill  in  the  handling  of  an  analytical 
formula  ?  It  may  be  that  my  undertaking  has  not  been  very  success¬ 
ful  ;  but  in  magnis  voluisse  sat  est.  And  this  leads  me  to  say  a  few 
words  in  answer  to  the  intimation  of  Professor  Newcomb  and  the 
direct  charge  of  my  reviewer  in  “  The  Critic,”  that  inquiries  into  the 
forms  and  laws  of  thought  are  sheer  impertinence,  and  of  no  conse¬ 
quence  to  the  physicist. 

In  the  introductory  part  of  his  article  Professor  Newcomb  flings 
at  me  the  case  of  De  Morgan’s  paradoxer  Smith,  who  fancied  that  he 
could  prove  the  ratio  of  the  circumference  of  a  circle  to  its  diameter 
to  be  exactly  2-J,  by  getting  somebody  to  admit  that  the  ratio  of  the 
circumference  to  the  diameter  is  the  same  for  all  circles,  and  then  tell¬ 
ing  him  to  draw  one  circle  with  the  diameter  1  and  circumference  3-J. 
Now,  the  intellectual  plight  of  this  paradoxer,  who,  besides  assuming 
the  very  thing  to  be  proved,  failed  to  see  that  his  argument  would 


19 


serve  equally  well  to  establish  any  other  ratio,  and  who  never  thought 
of  asking  himself  the  question  whether  or  not  a  diameter  1  and  a  cir¬ 
cumference  3^  were  compatible — whether  or  not  his  postulates  were 
consistent  with  each  other — is  closely  analogous  to  the  mental  pre¬ 
dicament  of  certain  scientific  specialists  who  are  constantly  multiply¬ 
ing  forces,  superable  and  insuperable,  and  all  manner  of  entities,  with 
impossible  or  contradictory  properties,  for  the  purpose  of  explaining 
natural  phenomena.  When  this  is  done  with  a  proper  insight  into  the 
nature  and  use  of  such  fictions — with  the  understanding  that  they  are 
mere  devices  for  fixing  ideas  or  colligating  facts  (to  use  Whewell’s 
expression) — it  is  wTell  enough.  But,  in  many  cases,  the  specialists  have 
mo  such  insight.  They  begin  to  treat  the  fictions  here  spoken  of  as 
undoubted  realities,  whose  existence  no  one  can  question  without  sub¬ 
jecting  himself  to  a  Newcombian  fustigation.  Take  the  case  of  the 
ether,  the  hypothetical  substratum  of  luminar  undulations.  It  is 
first  mentioned  simply  as  a  fluid  of  the  greatest  tenuity,  as  wholly 
inappreciable  to  the  senses,  and  as  offering  no  resistance  to  atoms  or 
celestial  spheres.  Thereupon,  to  meet  the  exigencies  of  the  undulatory 
theory,  it  is  endowed  with  a  co-efficient  of  elasticity  thousands  of  times 
greater  than  that  of  steel.  Next,  at  the  demand  of  some  physicist  or 
chemist,  who  wants  to  incase  his  atoms  or  molecules  in  ethereal  at¬ 
mospheres  or  envelopes,  it  is  made  as  soft  and  mobile  as  hydrogen  gas. 
First,  it  is  looked  upon  as  continuous  ;  then,  to  explain  the  dispersion 
of  light,  it  is  made  discontinuous,  and  “finite  intervals”  are  interposed 
between  its  atoms.  But  now  comes  Clerk  Maxwell,  and  shows  that, 
if  the  constitution  of  the  ether  were  atomic,  consequences  would  ensue 
upsetting  the  whole  theory  of  heat  ;  or  Helmholtz  and  Sir  William 
Thomson,  in  order  to  be  able  to  construct  their  vortex-atoms,  require 
it  to  be  absolutely  frictionless  and  incompressible,  and  therefore  con¬ 
tinuous  ;  and,  accordingly,  it  is  restored  again  to  its  ancient  continuity, 
no  matter  what  may  become  of  Cauchy’s  theory  of  chromatic  dispersion 
or  Fresnel’s  theory  of  polarization.  Originally  there  is  but  one  ether  ; 
but  presently  Professor  Norton  contends  that  the  luminiferous  ether 
is  not  available  for  the  purpose  of  explaining  the  phenomena  of  elec¬ 
tricity  and  magnetism.  He  demands  a  second  ether,  filling  the  same 
space  with  the  first ;  and  his  demand  is  complied  with.  In  a  short 
time  Mr.  Hudson  appears  with  the  claim  that  even  the  phenomena 
of  light  can  not  be  accounted  for  on  the  supposition  of  a  single 
light-bearing  ether  ;  and  he  must  have  two  luminiferous  media,  “  each 
possessed  of  equal  and  enormous  self  -  repulsion  or  elasticity,  and 
Both  existing  in  equal  quantities  throughout  space,  whose  vibrations 
take  place  in  perpendicular  planes  ;  the  t  '<  o  media  being  mutually  in¬ 
different,  neither  attracting  nor  repelling  ” — and,  again,  his  request  is 
granted  without  further  ceremony.  To  cap  the  climax,  finally  arrives 
the  pangeometer,  and  insists  that  back  of  and  behind  all  these  ethers 
there  is  an  independently  real  thing,  an  object  of  direct  sensation, 


20 


space ,  which  is  probably  flat,  but  which  possibly  may  turn  out  to  be 
inherently  crooked.  And  now,  when  somebody  shakes  his  head  and 
proposes  to  examine  whether  there  is  not  something  wrong  with  this 
whole  mode  of  philosophizing,  which  mistakes  crutches  for  limbs,  and 
scaffolds  for  buildings,  Professor  Newcomb  hurls  a  wooden  thunder¬ 
bolt  at  him,  or  a  reviewer  in  the  New  York  “Critic”  reminds  him 
that  “  the  sound  thinker  gives  himself  little  uneasiness  respecting  the 
laws  of  thought.” 

Now  let  us  look  for  a  moment  at  the  atom.  The  physicist  or 
chemist  gets  it  originally  as  an  ancient  heir-loom,  handed  down  from 
the  times  of  Democritus  or  Lucretius.  It  is  a  solid  body,  with  attach¬ 
ments  of  hooks  and  loops.  The  modern  scientist  takes  off  the  attach¬ 
ments,  and  holds  on  to  the  main  solid  body,  polishing  it  for  his  use. 
So  this  body  becomes  round  ;  but  in  course  of  time  appear  the  miner¬ 
alogist  and  chemist  with  their  morphological  laws,  such  as  the  law  of 
Mitscherlich,  with  theories  of  polarity  or  valency,  or  what  not  ;  and  to 
accommodate  them  it  is  proclaimed  that  the  atom  is  a  cube  or  a  rhomb 
or  an  octahedron,  or  whatever  else  will  silence  the  most  clamor.  After 
a  while,  Kroenig  or  Clausius  declares  that,  in  the  interest  of  his  kinetic 
theory  of  gases,  he  must  insist  on  the  perfect  sphericity  of  the  atoms 
or  ultimate  molecules  ;  and  thenceforward  (for  a  month  at  least)  they 
are  spherical.  But,  at  the  expiration  of  the  month,  Maxwell  points  to 
certain  anomalous  facts  which  are  supposed  to  be  inconsistent  with 
atomic  sphericity,  and  he  suggests  that  it  be  modified  so  as  to  give  the 
atoms  the  form  of  oblate  or  prolate  spheroids  ;  and,  of  course,  his  sug¬ 
gestion  is  adopted.  In  a  short  time  some  physicist  rushes  out  of  his 
laboratory  or  study,  and  announces  that  he  has  just  obtained  experi¬ 
mental  results  or  arrived  at  theoretical  conclusions  requiring  an  utter 
rejection,  not  only  of  the  definite  figure  of  the  atom,  but  of  its  entire 
bulk  ;  and  forthwith  it  is  subtilized  into  a  mere  center  of  force.  But 
now  the  physicist  is  reminded  that  force  must  have  a  substratum,  and 
that  its  indispensable  correlate  is  inertia.  At  this  juncture  the  pan¬ 
geometer  flits  upon  the  scene,  and  offers  the  perplexed  physicist  his 
fourth  dimension  in  which  to  lodge  both  the  extension  and  “  inten¬ 
sion” — i.  e.,  mass — of  the  centers  of  force,  assuring  him  that  he  may 
have  the  mere  punctuality  of  the  atom  in  ordinary  space,  and  behind 
it,  in  space  of  four  dimensions,  any  amount  of  bulk  and  weight.  At 
this  stage  of  the  proceedings  the  physicist  begins  to  look  desperate  \ 
perhaps  he  is  silently  meditating  the  question,  What  is  to  become  of 
experimental  research  if  the  properties  of  things  can  vanish  ad  libitumy 
and  retire  into  the  recesses  of  the  pangeometrical  regions  ?  And  yet, 
woe  to  him  who  ventures  to  suggest  to  the  chemist  that  the  origin  of 
the  trouble  is  not  in  his  retorts,  but  in  the  sincipital  alembic  through 
which  all  his  results  are  at  last  distilled,  or  to  show  the  physicist  that 
there  is  no  defect  in  the  lenses  of  his  microscope,  but  great  want  of 
achromatism  in  those  of  his  intellect !  He  speedily  learns  that  the 


21 


stupid  arrogance  of  dogmatism,  which  it  is  the  special  function  of  sci¬ 
ence  to  repress,  has  some  of  its  most  vulgar  representatives  in  the 
ranks  of  those  who  claim  to  he,  not  only  votaries  of  science,  but  its 
chosen  protagonists  and  defenders. 

Some  years  ago  Fechner,  in  the  first  edition  of  his  “  Atomenlehre,” 
printed  an  answer  he  had  made  to  some  one  who  objected  to  the  theo¬ 
ries  of  the  physicists  about  atoms,  ethers,  forces,  and  so  on.  It  was 
something  like  this  :  “I  have  a  handful  of  coins.  You  are  not  pleased 
with  the  effigy  and  inscription,  and  advise  me  to  throw  them  away  ; 
yet  you  offer  me  nothing  to  replace  them  but  an  empty  purse.”  If 
that  speech  had  been  made  to  me,  I  should  have  met  it  with  this  reply : 
“  The  mischief  is  that  your  coins  are  spurious  ;  they  are  base  metal. 
Nevertheless,  they  may  serve  a  good  purpose  as  mere  counters  or 
tokens,  provided  you  never  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  they  are  nothing 
more.  But  experience  teaches  that  you  do  constantly  lose  sight  of 
that  fact,  and  in  a  short  time  insist  dogmatically  that  the  coins  are 
of  unquestionable  intrinsic  value.  And,  having  found  out  that  you 
can  manufacture  any  amount  of  them  at  little  expense,  you  do  what 
all  inflationists  and  debasers  of  the  currency  are  in  the  habit  of 
doing  :  you  flood  the  market  with  stuff  which  must  inevitably  bring 
ruin  upon  the  very  man  whom  you  have  ensnared  into  the  belief  that 
he  can  never  have  enough  of  it,  viz.,  the  laborer  who  is  employed  in 
the  hard  work  of  producing  the  material  out  of  which  science  is  to  be 
constructed.  So,  if  you  are  unable  to  procure  genuine  theoretical 
specie  to  represent  the  scientific  wealth  you  are  intent  on  accumulat¬ 
ing,  and  at  the  same  time  are  unwilling  to  restrain  your  propensities 
for  manufacturing  spurious  coin  and  palming  it  off  on  yourself  and 
others  as  sterling  cash,  you  had  better  carry  your  facts  about  in  bas¬ 
kets  or  bags,  and  resort  to  the  ancient  clumsy  method  of  barter.” 

I  will  not  weary  the  reader  by  drawing  upon  the  rich  store-house 
of  theoretical  chemistry  for  further  illustration  of  the  manner  in  which 
provisional  and  tentative  hypotheses  are  paraded  as  absolute  finalities, 
and  results  of  experimental  research  are  obscured  instead  of  being  ir¬ 
radiated  by  theoretical  conceits.  I  will  content  myself  with  a  single 
further  reference  to  a  very  recent  and  very  remarkable  exemplification 
of  the  proneness  of  the  very  ablest  men  of  science  to  multiply  enti¬ 
ties  and  confound  modes  of  physical  interaction  or  forms  of  intellect¬ 
ual  apprehension  with  indestructible  things. 

In  the  scientific  journal,  “Nature,”  for  May  26,  1881  (vol.  xxiv,  p. 
78),  there  is  a  communication  from  Professor  Silvanus  P.  Thompson, 
containing  an  extract  from  the  preface  to  his  then  forthcoming  book 
“  Elementary  Lessons  in  Electricity  and  Magnetism,”  in  which  he  says  : 

The  theory  of  electricity  adopted  throughout  is,  that  electricity,  whatever 
its  nature,  is  one,  not  two  ;  that  electricity,  whatever  it  may  prove  to  be,  is  not 
matter  and  is  not  energy  ;  that  it  resembles  both  matter  and  energy  in  one  re¬ 
spect,  however,  in  that  it  can  neither  be  created  nor  destroyed. 


22 


Accordingly,  Professor  Thompson  supplements  the  doctrines  of  the 
“  Conservation  of  Matter  ”  and  “  Conservation  of  Energy  ”  with  the 
new  doctrine  of  the  “  Conservation  of  Electricity,”  which,  indeed,  is 
the  title  prefixed  to  his  communication. 

There  are,  of  course,  thoughtful  physicists  (and  their  number  is 
increasing  from  day  to  day)  who  do  not  share  the  delusion  that  every 
momentary  device  for  sorting  and  grouping  facts  is  to  be  hailed  as  a 
new  scientific  revelation,  and  who  do  not  dream  of  calling  upon  any 
one  to  uncover  his  head  before  every  passing  conceit  as  though  it  were 
an  eternal  truth.  But,  unfortunately,  these  men  are  not  always  in  the 
high  places,  and  are  averse  to  obtruding  themselves  in  public  as  vindi¬ 
cators  of  the  authority  of  science. 

I  certainly  cherish  sentiments  of  the  sincerest  admiration  and  re¬ 
spect  for  the  high-minded  and  generally  modest  men  who  devote  their 
energies  to  the  extension  of  the  bounds  of  knowledge,  and,  in  the  in¬ 
terest  of  thorough  and  effective  work,  shut  themselves  up  in  narrow 
and  dingy  workshops  from  whose  windows  a  wide  survey  of  the  scien¬ 
tific  horizon  is  difficult  or  impossible.  And  I  appreciate  fully  the  im¬ 
propriety  of  troubling  and  interrupting  them  with  idle  and  frivolous 
criticisms  and  suggestions.  I  know  that  they  are  under  the  necessity 
of  arranging  and  combining  their  crude  materials  upon  such  principles 
and  hypotheses  as  they  have  at  hand — that  they  can  not  make  bricks 
without  straw.  But  when  a  scientific  specialist  appears  as  an  intruder 
in  discussions  for  participation  in  which  his  habitual  occupations  have 
tended,  not  to  qualify,  but  to  disqualify  him  ;  and  when,  instead  of 
listening  and  saying  what  he  has  to  say  respectfully,  he  turns  to  the 
crowd  and  vociferates  about  “  charlatans,”  “  pretenders,”  and  “  para- 
doxers,”  my  thoughts  involuntarily  run  into  the  words  of  an  old  Greek 
which  have  been  stored  in  my  memory  since  my  boyhood  days  : 

6k  ke  prjr’  avrog  vokij  pi]T'  aXXov  clkovuv 
’Ev  i ^vbfj.C)  (3&%fajrai,  bd’  avr ’  axpfyog  avf/p. 


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